I am in the process of transcribing the Inclosure Award for Badgeworth and Shurdington. If you are seeking the lands that belonged to your ancestors, you may find some clues here. Only the landowners seem to be mentioned. With the section I am transcribing at the moment, that includes Joseph Ellis Viner, William Edwards Lawrence, William Henry Hyett and Joseph Sadler. The transcript accompanies maps of the area. The final version will be put on the computers at Gloucestershire Archives – many Inclosure Awards have already been installed there.

Well, my first session at the archives went well but I didn’t exactly get far. I had ordered two bundles of documents and concentrated first of all on the family bundle. This held about 20 documents and included copies of wills, (not all apparently related to the Gwinnett family but possibly to do with land they were interested in), leases and, the one I began with, a marriage settlement dated 1646. This related to the marriage of Richard Gwinnett to Anne Caple, the daughter of William Caple who was an Alderman in the city of Gloucester. Others mentioned were Richard’s parents, George and Elizabeth Gwinnett, and Anthony Freeman of Badgeworth, who was Richard’s brother-in-law. The amazing thing was that William Caple was paying George Gwinnett £600 to marry his daughter to Richard, of which only £100 would go to Richard and Anne. That was a lot of money in those days!! (Anyone tell me how much it would be worth today?) After nearly two hours of transcribing the document, I am still only a quarter of the way through it.

As part of my New Year’s resolution to spend more time on my own research, I am starting a session at the Gloucestershire Archives this evening when I can concentrate on my ancestors, the Gwinnetts. They appeared in the Badgeworth area of the county in the second half of the sixteenth century. The earliest reference I have found for them so far is 1575. The document is actually in the manorial records and the entry is dated 1579 but it mentions that George Gwinnett had been there for four years. Does anyone have an earlier date for them?